THE horrors of the Holocaust will once again be remembered with a series of events planned across Dorset to mark the annual memorial day.

Held on January 27, the national event encourages people to remember the victims of the holocaust and subsequent genocides.

The Bournemouth and Poole Holocaust Memorial Day Committee will hold its annual act of commemoration at Poole Lighthouse on the day.

The main speaker at its event this year will be Joanna Millan, one of the youngest survivors of the Nazis’ atrocities.

She was born as Bela Rosenthal in August 1942 in Berlin where, just a few months later, her father was taken and sent to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp where he was murdered on arrival.

A few months later, Bela, along with her mother, was sent to the Terezin ghetto north of Prague.

In 1944, after contracting tuberculosis, her mother died leaving 18-month-old Bela an orphan.

In her 40s she began to research her family’s history and now regularly speaks at events about her experience during the holocaust, including a talk at Queen Elizabeth’s School in Wimborne in 2017.

Last year, about 500 people attended the committee’s event at the Bournemouth International Centre which included a speech from Bilha Weider about her mother, Lily Egbert’s survival at Auschwitz.

The mayors of Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch will attend along with representatives of a range of other organisations.

Free tickets for this year’s event, which will take place from 2-4.30pm, are available at the Box Office or by calling 08444 068666.

Christchurch council’s Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration event will take place at the Quomps on Monday, January 28, starting at 10am.

The event will be led by the vicar of Christchurch Priory with a series of speakers telling their stories of being ‘torn from home’ – the theme of this year’s day.

Elsewhere, Poole Museum has also launched a ‘torn from home’ exhibition which will remain in place until February 2 while libraries across Bournemouth and Poole will also host displays.

Ringwood Meeting House will host a candlelit vigil to mark the memorial day from 3pm on Sunday, January 27.